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ZUNGUMZA NA MTOTO MCHANGA

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Title: ZUNGUMZA NA MTOTO MCHANGA

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ZUNGUMZA NA MTOTO MCHANGA

Talk to Your Baby
Janet David Townend

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Improving early language development leads to

Bigger vocabulary
Better sentence construction
Earlier reading and writing readiness
Readiness for learning other languages
Enhanced cognitive potential
but, are babies in Tanzania getting a good
enough early language experience?

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Encouragements and Challenges

Are you sure Tanzanian mothers dont talk to
their babies?
Of course mothers interact with their babies
That makes complete sense to me
Go for it!
and finally, from MoEVT Lets do it
Many meetings followed.....

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We went to the field

We piloted the attitude questionnaire
We taught a lesson to Standard 5, about the
importance of talking to babies
We talked to groups of mothers in village
churches

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Now the project looks like this

Key activities (to be completed)
Community-based research
Focus on community reach for intervention
Incorporation of learning into existing early
childhood development (ECD) provision
Incorporation in curricula (primary, adult
training of relevant professionals)
Training of trainers
Learning packs for self-study
Information campaign

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Partner organisations (so far)

Inter-ministerial Task Force (3 ministries)
UDOM
WAMA
Children in Crossfire
VSO
TECDEN
Monduli Pastoralist Development Initiative
UDSM, UWEZO, World Bank, Save the Children,
TAWREF, CSWD (Mafia) are getting involved

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What the stakeholders are doing now

Shifting ownership from volunteers to Tanzanian
stakeholders.
Expressing their strong desire to bring about
behaviour change, starting now.
Distributing responsibilities between
stakeholders.
Following up their commitment to using existing
routes
Focusing on rural poor, as the most needy group
Making progress on the key activities

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ZUNGUMZA NA MTOTO MCHANGA

Research evidence

Nobel prize winning economist and child
development expert, James Heckman, wrote
recently
Skill formation starts in the womb. The early
years of a childs life before the child enters
school lay the foundations for all that follows

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Neural connections for language (Harvard
University)

Are established mostly in the first year
Depend upon a good language environment
Question How many words do you think an infant
in Tanzania typically hears at home in one hour?

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Number of words heard
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Literacy acquisition depends on language levels
at 24 months (Blanden, 2006) Academic success
correlates very highly with size of vocabulary at
age 5 (Roulstone et al., 2011)
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International researchers agree that

Language skill is central to intellectual and
social development in children (Cain Oakhill,
2007)
Some say it is the most important factor (Harvard
University)
Language development is most active in the first
year of life (Ryan Deci, 2000)
Early language experience is the most important
experience for children to achieve their
potential (Sylva et al., 2008)

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Why start early?
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Cost to benefit ratio of interventions in early
education

Is highest in the first three years (Doyle et
al., 2007)
This is before the start of formal education
(Heckman, 2011)

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What affects ECD?
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What affects ECD?

Home environment is even more important than
length of time at preschool

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Conclusion

Parents must be their childs first teachers
Education starts at birth

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Effects of socio-economic status
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The rich win on

Better school readiness
Larger vocabulary
Fewer behaviour problems
This is why Zungumza na Mtoto Mchanga must target
the disadvantaged. In Tanzania, that means the
rural poor.

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What do we already know in Tanzania?

Anecdotal observation evidence so far
Little verbal interaction between parents and
babies
Parents do not expect babies to need / understand
language
Hardly anyone knows of the importance of early
language

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There is now a need for

Baseline research to establish present language
experience of babies
Attitude survey to establish current beliefs
practice about language babies
Investigation of the effectiveness of capacity
building among families
Reporting of the findings

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References

Harvard University Centre on the Developing
Child. In Brief the science of early childhood
development. www.developingchild.harvard.edu .
2007.
Blanden, J. Bucking the trend what enables
those who are disadvantaged in childhood to
succeed later in life?. 2006. Cited in DfE/DoH
Supporting families in the foundation years.
London, UK HMSO, 2011.
Roulstone, S.et al. The role of language in
childrens early educational outcomes. London,
UK DfE, 2011.
Cain, K. And Oakhill, J. Childrens
comprehension problems in oral and written
language. Guilford Press, 2007.
Harvard University Centre on the Developing
Child. In Brief the science of early childhood
development. www.developingchild.harvard.edu .
2007.
Ryan, R. and Deci, E. Intrinsic and extrinsic
motivations classic definitions and new
directions. Journal of Contemporary Educational
Psychology, vol. 25, pp. 54-67. 2000.
Sylva, K. et al. Effective pre-school and
primary education 3-11 project pre-school,
school and family influences on childrens
development during Key Stage 2 (age 7-11).
2008. Cited in DfE/DoH Supporting families in
the foundation years. London, UK HMSO, 2011.
Taylor, M. The politics of parenting. In Brack,
D. et al. Re-inventing the state social
liberalism for the 21st Century. 2007.
Doyle, O. et al. Early childhood intervention
rationale, timing and efficacy. 2007.
Heckman, J. The American family in black and
white a post-racial strategy for improving
skills to promote equality, 2011.